Designer "unicorn" seahorses possible?

[Betta132]

Theoretically, would it be possible to breed one of the knobblier seahorse species to have a "horn" growing out of its forehead? I mean, some of them already have a little point there. And wouldn't that be awesome?

 

[hotelbravo]

Might have a higher response rate in the sea horse section. Sea horses are unexplored territory for me.

 

[ichthyogeek]

I know that you can breed "snowball" seahorses (fusedjaw). But the seahorses you're talking about....might take many, many, many generations to achieve a tiny horn. Also, you'd have to worry about the babies getting ejected out of the male's pouch, a horn would not let them get shot out easily. Eventually (as in, 3-4 lifetimes), you might get a horn, but you might also get a prickly seahorse, with 'horns' all over the body. You also have to take in the ethics of it as well: such seahorses would have a hard time starting out, and they'd have to eat more in order to get a bigger horn. The time to establish a new "breed" of seahorse would be further increased depending on how big of a horn you wanted per seahorse.

It would be really cool for them to have a horn. Of course then they wouldn't be called sea-horses. They'd be called sea-unicorns. Every fishkeeper's 6 year old daughter's dream.